


Walking through a dream (I see you)

by twoshipsinthenight



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: M/M, Magic, Magical Realism, Mythology References, Paganism, Science Fiction & Fantasy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-16 21:22:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28588722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twoshipsinthenight/pseuds/twoshipsinthenight
Summary: Jamie dreams of a silver tree.
Relationships: Miro Heiskanen/Jamie Oleksiak
Kudos: 10





	Walking through a dream (I see you)

Jamie dreams of a silver tree. It stands solitary and regal in a clearing, reaching up to the moonlit sky, its roots anchored far below the earth on which Jamie stands. At the end of every delicate, gleaming branch there are three perfect silvery-green leaves. 

He can feel the tree’s energy - a brilliant and startling jolt of ‘alive, alive, alive!’ - thrumming down through the earth and the air around him. There is something otherworldly and slippery in the presence of its aura, faintly vibrating the air at the very edges of his vision. He allows his attention to soften and unfocus, letting his mind relax as the strange energy passes in and out of his awareness like dappled sunlight over water. It feels playful and friendly, but also vast - and so very, very ancient that Jamie shifts his attention to other energies quickly. He does not want to be sucked into that particular, yawning well. He has a tiny, whispering fear in the back of his mind that he might never wake up from that one.

In his dream, he approaches the tree. His footsteps are deliberate and respectfully slow, the loamy ground absorbing any noise. The silvery leaves over his head rustle and whisper among themselves. He shivers lightly as a gentle breeze tiptoes over his bare skin. He doesn’t know why, but dreams like these - dreams in which he is aware he is dreaming, but also aware that it’s more than just a dream, somehow - always seem to require that he is completely naked. He’s not cold now, and he’s not concerned about it, but he has no idea why it always has to be that way. Maybe one day he’ll find answers to some of the millions of questions he has, but for now he tries to pay attention to his dream senses, to stay present in the moment and watchful for whatever message he might be about to receive.

The tree dips a single limb towards him, the leaves shifting and curling back, away from his hand as he slowly stretches up to meet the limb halfway. As the last leaf gently curls back on itself, a single, tiny, golden flower is exposed underneath, quivering gently in the fragrant air. Jamie strokes the delicate bud with a fingertip, marveling at the exquisite detail. He doesn’t wish to pluck such a beautiful thing, and looks up at the tree, wondering if he can somehow convey his distress.

“Take it...” comes a rustling, sibilant whisper as a breeze seems to move through the leaves and trails an invisible caress against Jamie’s skin, raising goosebumps in its wake. The flower trembles, and Jamie notices that it is held to the branch with only the tiniest thread of a stem. He barely moves his fingers against the stem and it breaks free, coming to rest feather-light in the palm of his hand.

As he brings his face closer, it begins to open. Inside the first outer layer of gold, exquisitely thin petals of every color imaginable unveil themselves, stretching slowly into the light and creating a fantastic jewel-toned rainbow of a blossom in his hand. At the very center, a tiny sparkling stone winks up at him in the sunlight.

“Take it…” the many-layered voices breathe out again, a few curls of his hair lifting to caress his neck in the gentle breeze.

Jamie reaches inside the soft petals and plucks the stone out with his finger and thumb. As soon as he does so, the flower collapses with a gentle puff of perfumed air, the petals separating and swirling off into a sudden light wind that had struck up around the clearing.

“Good…” The whispers sigh contentedly, fading into silence as the branch settles back into its place, the pattern of the leaves no longer disrupted. The tree seems to forget Jamie is still there, and he glances in dismay at his palm, wondering what he is to do now with this gift that he never asked for.

As he stares at the stone, he sees that although it appeared clear at first glance, it is actually many-hued; every color of the rainbow subtly gleaming up at him as he tilts his hand this way and that. It’s absolutely stunning. He has no idea why the tree would give him such a thing. He has no use for it, none at all.

He thinks for a moment, staring up at the tree and then around the clearing. The forest is continuing on with its day now, and the energy is washing over and around Jamie just like any normal forest would, aware but not concerned with the human creature in its midst. Jamie looks at the sparkling, strange little stone in his palm and sighs, wrapping his fingers protectively around it, keeping it safe. He decides to start walking. Usually these types of dreams will eventually shift into a normal dream if he leaves whatever place or thing had wanted his attention. It was almost always somewhere in a forest like this one. He knows why. His mother isn’t a follower of Elen of the Ways by mere coincidence, after all. 

But he does wish, sometimes, that the dreams were a little more clear-cut, with specific instructions and direction. His mother has told him that they are always personal, and only the intended recipient can truly understand the message. And it often takes time - days, weeks, or even months might go by before he would finally get that flash of insight, finally see as an integrated whole the true intent and impact of the dream. Sometimes, though very rarely, the message was meant for someone else, and he was mostly a conduit. He would say something seemingly normal in a moment somewhere, to someone, and he would feel the magic whoosh through him. Time would seem to slow down, just for that moment, and he knew that once again, something had been accomplished on the behalf of the mysterious powers that walk the worlds adjacent to, but not exactly of, ours. He would look in the person’s eyes, and it would feel, for a moment, like he was back in the forest - this time with them, watching them walk down a similar path to the one he always found suddenly in front of him. But it always seemed that in their mind, the message was clear and immediate, and right in front of them. He never knew exactly what they understood in those moments, and he knew that wasn’t the point. He would watch their expression soften, an inner, private understanding seeming to radiate from their eyes as they would thank him for his words. It always brought a deep feeling of relief, and for that, he was grateful. He couldn’t know more than that for now, but somehow that ignorance seemed a small price to pay during those few moments when he knew that one more mystery from his nighttime wanderings had been brought to light in the way it was intended. Later he might be annoyed again, but in those moments he was content to just be of service.

Jamie lifts his gaze from the path as he walks into the cool, darkened woods surrounding the bright tree. The stone feels strange in his hand, warm from his body heat and yet unyielding against his skin. He has some vague, developing suspicions about this particular dream’s purpose, but quickly decides that they are nothing he cares to dwell on. As he passes more trees he can sense the dream shifting around him, and he smiles as the landscape becomes familiar, the forest giving way to the clearing around his Toronto cabin. 

He hesitates at the back door, bringing his hand carefully up to eye level and studying the gleaming stone in his palm. Somehow he is wearing clothes again; an old jacket that still faintly smells of Pop’s tobacco, and lightweight gloves; familiar work clothes that he’d often donned to chop wood or clear pine needles from the yard. He carefully tucks the stone into his breast pocket, giving it one last pat before the dream takes over for him, finally allowing his conscious mind to surrender control back to his unconscious.

****

Miro waits at the side of the lake, impatiently tapping his fingers against his elbow, arms crossed, trying not to glare at anyone who gets within his bubble of personal space. His tolerance for chaos and nonsense is particularly low today, and he’s caught himself wanting to bare his canines at more than one overly-loud, stupidly flailing frat boy as they splash up out of the water and run up the shore, shouting and laughing.

He is jealous, he knows that is why he finds them so irritating today. Do they have to flaunt their wet hair, wet skin, happily sated bodies so sloppily, loudly, flagrantly in his direction? Miro himself is always composed, calm, quietly happy and relaxed when he leaves the lake. But he supposes the differences aren’t their fault. After all, none of them share what Miro gets from the lake.

He finally hears what he’s waiting for: the knot of people socializing in the water suddenly all begin talking loudly at once, pointing at a young man in their midst who seems to be coughing up a sizable portion of the lake water. The guy’s friends are laughing and pushing each other, slapping him on the back as he splutters and hacks. He’s clearly not in any real danger, but the lifeguard is already halfway to them and Miro seizes his chance.

He silently steps to the edge of the lake, his chosen spot a bank that juts out over a deeper section of water. He smoothly, with barely a ripple lowers himself into the water, almost moaning in relief as the sweet, cool liquid envelopes him head-to-toe. The transformation is a little slower than he’d like, but it’s still only a few seconds of time before he feels the gloriously cold water flowing over his gills. He closes his eyes in pure relief. The sensation is like a soothing balm on parched skin after too long of a day spent in the sun.

He pushes off from the underside of the bank, reveling in the wide-open water before him. Other than the people occupying the shallower end where the wading and swimming was easy, there would be nothing to compete with him for space and time today. The filtered greenish light coming from the surface is already dimming as Miro dives deeper and deeper. 

Gratitude fills him as he looks around, slowing his movements until he is floating in place. This is the part of the world that belongs only to him, where there is peace and uncomplicated existence, a world unto itself, far removed from the human world of chaos and conflict. This is his territory, his spiritual home, his to tend to and to utilize for tending to himself. 

Miro takes one more deep breath, soaking in the feeling of being exactly where he should be, and gets to work. After all, his lake won’t clean and garden itself - at least, not to Miro’s high standards.

  
  


****

The season is barely three months old when Jamie notices something. He thinks, well, maybe he’s noticed it for longer than just this season, but he’s never thought consciously about it before.

But he can’t ignore it now. As he half-turns to skate backwards, covering the two forwards flying up the ice with the puck, he catches the quick, furiously graceful movement out of the corner of his eye. He knows it’s Miro, his defense partner, skating as quickly as he can to catch up to the 2-on-1 and help Jamie out. The two of them are a brand-new pairing on D that is panning out better than anyone had hoped or expected. They’ve spent a lot of time skating together this year. He _knows_ it’s Miro over there to his right. Miro, the quick-footed, 6’1”, dark-haired, blue-green-eyed 20-year-old guy from Finland.

So why does he keep imagining he sees something else coming up the ice? He would swear on his life that he catches a flash of a hoof, sees the suggestion of a long mane whipping around, hears the faintest ring of something that is not _just_ a skate blade hitting the ice. 

It’s a delusion - has to be. Or at least that's what Jamie had told himself at first. But when he really started to pay attention, he began to realize other things. 

Like how even when Miro is standing still he has a faint, shimmery, constantly moving aura about him that Jamie can just barely catch - he can only just see it in his peripheral vision when he’s not trying to look too hard at it. 

It’s the same otherworldly quality as the silver tree from his dream over the summer. The same strange energy that he feels the edges of in some part of all of his waking dreams.

Jamie has no idea what any of this means. It could be his own magical intuition trying to tell him something about Miro, but possibly not actually coming from Miro. Or could it be that he’s picking up something about Miro that Miro is trying to hide?

He respects privacy. It’s just that his curiosity is _piqued_ . He’s encountered a few people over the years who’ve had similar experiences to some of his own, but he doesn’t think he’s ever encountered another human who gives off a sense of being, well, _magic_ in the way that he’s only encountered with different beings in his dreams. Those beings have always been more animal/plant/god-like than anything resembling a human he could meet in the ‘normal’ world as he knows it. So yes, he’s curious about Miro. Very, very curious in fact. But, he does respect privacy, and he won’t pry into something if Miro doesn’t feel safe disclosing it to his teammates.

  
  


****

The thing is, Miro _misses_ his lake during the season. 

He loves hockey, and he loves that he gets this chance to play hockey for a living, and he wants nothing more than to play as much hockey as he can, for as long as he can. 

But he wants to be by his lake _too._

Of course, he knew he’d have to sacrifice when he chose professional hockey over everything else. He just hadn’t known how it would actually _feel_ once he was actually settled in another country. 

Miro had never known he could feel thirsty all the way to his bones. He dreams every single night now of the same dream; full of whispering lake grasses, the colors all luxuriously cool greens, dappled light filtering down through the depths, filling him with a longing that breaks open and crushes his heart every time he wakes up halfway across the world.

****

Jamie is staring at Miro, studying that flickering, elusive aura around him when it happens. Miro looks up slowly from where he had been watching the scrimmage, and looks straight at him, his blue-green gaze calm and unwavering. Jamie feels like he can’t breathe, and they stare at each other, all the sounds of hockey fading away from Jamie’s awareness, a soft, steady roaring like water filling his ears. Jamie doesn’t know how much time is passing; he feels like he is walking down a forest path again in a waking dream, but this time Miro is with him, and as they walk, their hands brush, and then catch, and then hold.

A body slides between them, blocking Miro’s eyes from Jamie’s view, and he comes rushing back to the present, all his senses tuning back in, like breaking the surface of a pool after a deep dive to the bottom. Esa is chattering away, and Miro is smiling and answering in Finnish, looking unfazed and normal. Jamie rubs at his eyes and turns away, feeling like his whole world just got picked up, shaken around, and set back down. Everything appears the same as it was, but somehow, everything feels completely different. Has the ice always been this bright? He can’t look away, the sparkling of the light on the surface drawing him in, reminding him of - of -

“Rig! We’re waiting! Stop wool-gathering and get your ass out here!” Bones is skating in front of the bench, his whistle in his gloved hand as he waves his stick in Jamie’s direction, a look of impatience warring with amusement as Jamie startles and jumps over the boards and onto the ice. 

As Jamie skates out to join his teammates, he catches Miro glancing at him and looking quickly away. There is a new quality to the energy around Miro as he does so, and it nearly stops Jamie in his tracks. He comes to a stop next to Miro, and as he looks up to where Bones is drawing out the plays, he catches a nearly visible tendril of energy uncurling from Miro’s aura that seems to reach out straight for Jamie, just for a fraction of a second. Jamie turns his head and looks directly at it and it vanishes. 

He looks up at Miro, and Miro is already looking at him, his eyes widening, his pupils dilated. Jamie draws in a breath, feeling his pulse quicken, and sudden, undeniable arousal flood through his veins. He leans closer to Miro, his gaze dropping to his parted lips, watching as his cheeks flush slightly. He wants to kiss him. 

Miro licks his lips and leans back, breaking the spell that had Jamie in thrall, and gestures silently towards the team and coaching staff. Jamie nods, turning his attention as best he can back to the task at hand. But he is absolutely, one hundred percent going to figure this out with Miro the second they are out of their gear and free from their hockey-related duties for the day. 

  
  


****

Jamie takes the fastest shower in the history of hockey, but when he’s furiously toweled his hair, sure he looks insane with his curls sticking out in every direction, and half-runs back to the locker room, Miro is already gone. Jamie sighs, deflating like a sad balloon and sagging down onto the bench at his stall. He doesn’t want to think about what must be going through Miro’s head to make him decide to run away like that. It’s not like Miro, who is usually so calm, and so brave, always dealing with his problems head-on. Jamie doesn’t want to be a problem for Miro. He was hoping they could figure this out together.

****

Miro is pacing in front of his phone, willing it to ring, or light up with a text, something, anything. He doesn’t know what time it is, but it feels like hours, days, weeks since he saw that look in Jamie’s eyes. What was that? He couldn’t escape it, and hadn’t wanted to. Until Esa broke them apart, Miro had been ready to stay in Jamie’s gaze for eternity. 

He hears the knock, and is halfway to the door before making a conscious decision in that direction.

He flings the door open, and Jamie steps in, nearly closing the distance between them in one step. He gently shuts the door behind him, his eyes never leaving Miro’s, and Miro can’t stop himself from taking the half-step forward.

Jamie meets him halfway, their lips brushing and then coming together again, Jamie moaning softly into the kiss as Miro deepens it, leaning his full weight into Jamie, needing to be closer. Jamie pulls him in, wrapping his arms around Miro’s back, cradling his head in one big hand. Miro can’t stop touching Jamie, running his hands across the hard muscles of Jamie’s back and stomach, pushing his fingers into Jamie’s still-damp hair, touching his cheek, his neck, running his thumb across Jamie’s lips as they break apart for a second to catch their breath.

“I’m glad you got my text,” Miro whispers, and Jamie smiles.

“Right after I got out to my truck,” Jamie whispers back, and then catches the tip of Miro’s thumb with his teeth, licking a teasing stripe across it before releasing him.

“Bedroom?” Miro whispers, staring into the depths of Jamie’s eyes, dark with lust and something else - something familiar, that makes Miro feel like he is not thousands of miles away from his lake, even though he logically knows that he is just as far as he was yesterday. Jamie seems to be staring at something that is just in front of Miro’s face, though Miro can see nothing there. But he shakes himself out of whatever had distracted him and gazes back at Miro, the desire in his eyes answering the question before his confirming nod.

Miro laces their fingers together and leads Jamie down the hall, feeling more alive with his magic than he had since he’d boarded the plane in Finland many moons before. He doesn’t know which of his country’s many gods and goddesses he can thank for the incredibly sexy man currently following him to his bedroom, but he will be indiscriminately sending all of them an extremely generous offering of appreciation for this unexpected wish come true.

  
  


****

  
  


Jamie cards his fingers through the hair of the gorgeous man currently lying asleep in his arms and thinks about how lucky one person could be in a lifetime. How much luck was too much? Has he done enough good deeds to deserve this kind of a gift? He really doesn’t think that is even possible. He smiles to himself, hearing a voice that sounds like a blend of all the women in his family scolding him, telling him he does not need to earn being cared for, that just by being he is worthy of affection and love.

As he drifts off to sleep himself, he vows to talk to Miro about the magic in the morning. Best to get everything out in the open. He doesn’t want anything getting in the way of whatever this is that is beginning to bloom between them.

Jamie is walking down a forest path, and everything, everywhere is blooming. He can smell, and see, what seems like hundreds of flowers, everywhere he looks in the forest around him. The air is alive with bees humming, birds singing as they flit from branch to branch, and the animals of the forest chattering and happy as they go about their business. He notices that many of the creatures seem to be in pairs, and feels a deep, settled sort of contentment down to his bones as he thinks of Miro. He knows he must be lying next to him, probably still holding him in his arms as his mind drifts in this waking dream.

As he walks, he slowly realizes that he is wearing clothes this time. He slows to a stop, and something makes him reach into his front pocket. A comforting smell of tobacco wafts up to his nose, and he pulls out the tiny, glittering stone that he knew he would find there. He stares into the fiery center for a long moment, and as he lowers the stone he finds himself gazing into a pair of timeless, calm, blue-green eyes.

The stag lowers its head, maintaining eye contact until the last moment. Jamie also lowers his gaze, a deep well of gratitude surging up inside him, and when he looks back up the stag is gone. In its place is a single footprint in the soft loam, in the clear shape of a human foot. 

He doesn’t have all the answers, and that’s okay now. He has enough. He has more than he ever thought he’d find on his path, and what he found is his and has always been his. He knows this now, with a deep sense in his bones, as he turns the glittering stone over and over in his palm. He knows that when he wakes up the stone will still be there, his own message, forged from his heart. And he knows now who the intended recipient is. He thinks he’s always known, and this time, all the answers he doesn’t have seem insignificant when held up to the light and compared to the knowing in his heart, and in his magic.


End file.
